Dev Shawn McGrath Lays Down Some Smack: storytelling in games is worthless

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As I said, you are free to disagree, though I believe your point to be a huge exaggeration of mine.

I think your point about "going against the nature of one's medium" is so self-evidently ridiculous that there's no way in which I could lampoon it more than it lampoons itself. I'm merely citing examples.

NalanoH. Wildmoon
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"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen

I don't understand why one would forbid the more nuanced view here. Games have gameplay. Cool. Can a game exist as nothing but gameplay? Nope. That would require some mystical mind magic. Can games be good without putting much effort into any of the non-mechanical elements that allow gameplay to be communicated to the player? Yes, but be careful; good gameplay is meaningless if it isn't translated intact to the player. I can't see inside to the core of the game and understand exactly what the developer wanted me to experience, I can only play with what I perceive as being offered to me.

Can they be really good at communicating the gameplay in an entertaining, valuable context to the player without the play itself having any mechanical nuance, novelty or notable quality to it? Yes, but we should be careful again especially with the "notable quality" part; I think this is much more reasonable a suggestion that that in the above paragraph, though. In a much over-simplified sense, this is how genres develop. We're ok seeing some mechanics get re-used and retooled without much creativity as long as the whole package delivers something worthwhile (and hopefully creative)--maybe additional mechanics that are novel, or an interesting narrative, or a well-realized world, or great visuals.

Why can't we measure the worth of a medium, and works within that medium, in terms of impact? How fun or meaningful or interesting they are to the audience and designers? It's all very well to criticize the gaming public for lauding the story in game X or the visuals in game Z if you disagree that they are in fact good. But suggesting that those are invalid measure of the worth of the product? The game developers put time into it. Players cared about that element of the game. Critics cared about that element of the game. Other developers took notice and picked at that component of the game. How then can you dismiss character, visuals, sound design, narrative, unorthodox modes of play, found content (emergent gameplay, player-contribution mechanics), and all the other bits that make up a game simply because, say, the control scheme is awful? Or the maps and guns are boring?

There's another question. What on earth is gameplay anyway? Why can't visuals be part of gameplay? In most games you sort of have to see what's going on to be able to play properly. Sounds can play an important role in the mechanics (alerting your of off-screen happenings, confirming the affect of actions in the world when animations are insufficient), as can level design. Narrative and dialog can be play--in games like Mass Effect (and for that matter, old-school RPGs) where dialog is pretty solidly mechanical gameplay but also in games where it doesn't directly interact with the rest of the game. If it affects my experience of the mechanics, I'd say it's part of gameplay whether or not it does so through clear, explicit mechanical means; and narrative can quite often change how I behave in a game. Whether I try to protect an NPC, whether I use my stun-gun or my sniper rifle, whether I go out of my way to perform particular activities, whether I consider attempting particular actions in game ...

I'm struggling to find a definition of gameplay that kicks narrative and other non-button related mechanics to the curb. And when the narrative, as in Mass Effect, is a fully fleshed mechanical concept? You have to do better than "gameplay trumps story," folks, because conversations were part of play in Mass Effect no matter how bad you thought the story was.

Last edited by gwathdring; 04-12-2012 at 04:37 AM.

I think of [the Internet] as a grisly raw steak laid out on a porcelain benchtop in the sun, covered in chocolate hazelnut sauce. In the background plays Stardustís Music Sounds Better With You. Thereís lots of fog. --tomeoftom

No let me. A game with good gameplay and a bad story is shit. A game with bad gameplay and a good story is shit. A game with bad gameplay and bad story is shit. A game with shit is shit. A shit shit shit shit shit shit.

Well let me try then
A game with good gameplay and bad story is still at least a mediocre game
A game with bad gameplay and good story is shit

Right then.

Last edited by gwathdring; 04-12-2012 at 06:07 AM.

I think of [the Internet] as a grisly raw steak laid out on a porcelain benchtop in the sun, covered in chocolate hazelnut sauce. In the background plays Stardustís Music Sounds Better With You. Thereís lots of fog. --tomeoftom

Well let me try then
A game with good gameplay and bad story is still at least a mediocre game
A game with bad gameplay and good story is shit

Game needs both there champ. Think about Tetris for example. The game arguably has no story, but that is the result of not looking close enough. The game's story can be summed up in one word: futility. All your accomplishments will eventually be washed away in an unending spiral of increasing adversity. Games from that era almost seem Kafkaesque (or maybe I'm projecting my own depressing psyche on it). Anyway, a good story does not necessarily need to be a complex story.

Either bad gameplay or a bad story kill a game for me. Truth be told, everything has a story if you're paying attention.

Well let me try then
A game with good gameplay and bad story is still at least a mediocre game
A game with bad gameplay and good story is shit

Heavy Rain and The Walking Dead both have at best mediocre game play but have excellent stories and are considered good games. You never hear anyone talking about how great the in game mechanics are in Heavy Rain or The Walking Dead, they always go for the story.

Game needs both there champ. Think about Tetris for example. The game arguably has no story, but that is the result of not looking close enough. The game's story can be summed up in one word: futility. All your accomplishments will eventually be washed away in an unending spiral of increasing adversity. Games from that era almost seem Kafkaesque (or maybe I'm projecting my own depressing psyche on it). Anyway, a good story does not necessarily need to be a complex story.

I think you make the mistake of overthinking things here. Just because you can somehow discuss a story or a theme into something doesn't mean it was there in the first place and intended by the original creator. Sometimes a Match-3 game is just a Match-3 game.

- If the sound of Samuel Barber's "Adagio For Strings" makes you think of Kharak burning instead of the Vietnamese jungle, most of your youth happened during the 90s. -

Mohorororororvicicicicic is right that a game with bad gameplay and a good story is a bad game, but that doesn't mean it's not a good something else, and still better at being something else than it would be if you removed all the interactivity.

Game needs both there champ. Think about Tetris for example. The game arguably has no story, but that is the result of not looking close enough. The game's story can be summed up in one word: futility. All your accomplishments will eventually be washed away in an unending spiral of increasing adversity. Games from that era almost seem Kafkaesque (or maybe I'm projecting my own depressing psyche on it).

"The dimly lit corridor was the color of puke green"

This sentence is not an allegory for author's cravings to return to life in peace with nature and mother earth, because the dimly lit corridor symbolizes a womb and puke green symbolizes damaged ecology of our planet. It means it was a corridor in puke green, dimly lit because it was a cheap-ass motel.

Stop making up nonsense.

Originally Posted by Jesus_Phish

Heavy Rain and The Walking Dead both have at best mediocre game play but have excellent stories and are considered good games.

By who? Muppets like you who think that "I had fun with this" equals "This is good"?

Heavy Rain and The Walking Dead both have at best mediocre game play but have excellent stories and are considered good games. You never hear anyone talking about how great the in game mechanics are in Heavy Rain or The Walking Dead, they always go for the story.

But what's the point of a game that has mediocre game-play but an excellent narrative? Why bother making it a game at all? Why not a TV show or a film, or if it has to be interactive Interactive Fiction.

To me a game that has mediocre game-play is never going to be a good game no matter how much narrative you cram into it, because that's not what a game is (to me). If I want writer driven narrative there are other mediums that are better suited to it.

But what's the point of a game that has mediocre game-play but an excellent narrative? Why bother making it a game at all? Why not a TV show or a film, or if it has to be interactive Interactive Fiction.

To me a game that has mediocre game-play is never going to be a good game no matter how much narrative you cram into it, because that's not what a game is (to me). If I want writer driven narrative there are other mediums that are better suited to it.

Being personally involved is often a good thing. If you move to a non-interactive method then you're naturally going to lose that. Also, even mediocre gameplay tends to be engaging enough if you're in the right frame of mind.

An alternative cynical point of view is that you're just trying to get as many people to buy your product, and you reckon that removing the mediocre gameplay would make fewer people buy your product even if it would make the product better. A related example is that choice'n'consequence dialogue tree games are usually RPGs and vice versa, even though there is no logical reason for this. People just expect one with the other and you give people what they expect rather than what's best.

I like playing through a story. Even if the gameplay involves me clicking around a screen to progress it, I'd rather do that than read a book or watch it while just sitting there. I personally, can't get as heavily invested in caring about characters in most books and shows.

There's also choice to be made and consequences to be had in games that you can't do in movies or tv shows and the only way you can do them in books is adventure books. I doubt very much Lord of The Rings would have held up as well if you got to the end of a chapter and it said "Do you want Frodo to lead the fellowship, go to chapter 12. Do you want Legolas to sit this one out, go to chapter 11".

In games you can make choices that have an effect so much later in the game, that you can't simply reload and pick the other option, without spending maybe 3 or 4 hours to get back to where you are. Although not an amazing example of doing this because the choices didn't matter, I made choices in Mass Effect 1 that resonated into Mass Effect 3. I couldn't simply turn back the clock and remake those choices without playing through at least another 20 hours of game. Hell even if I'd to replay an hour of game to remake a choice I'd be pushed not to do it, and I know that whatever happens to whatever characters is as a result of my actions.

I can't stop what happens to Ned Stark in Game of Thrones. I can't control anyone in Serenity. But I can make choices in Heavy Rain and The Walking Dead that will cause the story to twist and turn and have an impact on me, because I'm the one that made it.

By who? Muppets like you who think that "I had fun with this" equals "This is good"?

Not sure I see the need for calling me a "muppet". Excuse me for enjoying games, that have both received acclaim from the public and critics alike.

Perhaps it's because both these games, with their mediocre gameplay but compelling story lines destroy whatever weak argument you or anyone else possible have for suggesting that games can only truly be judged by their gameplay and that games shouldn't try have compelling stories because books and movies exist.

But what's the point of a game that has mediocre game-play but an excellent narrative? Why bother making it a game at all? Why not a TV show or a film, or if it has to be interactive Interactive Fiction.

Exactly. A game that has an excellent story but bad gameplay is not a game. It's a story. It can't be called a game because it lacks the "game" component.